Interesting interview from today’s Guardian with the woman most associated with the Abu Ghraib scandal. While there’s no major insights, it does show you a more human element to the workings of the people involved.
England’s sense of persecution is so advanced at this stage that the question of whether or not she is contrite has almost no meaning. In the most notorious photo, she holds a leash with a naked man crawling out of his cell on the end of it. In another, she makes the thumbs up sign behind a human pyramid. In another, she grins at a naked prisoner as he is forced to simulate masturbation.
After the photos came out, people looked at England’s childhood for some kind of explanatory episode, an early demonstration of cruelty, or else evidence that she had herself been abused. While Graner, the ringleader and the man who took some of the photos, has had three court orders secured against him by his ex-wife for alleged domestic violence, England, 10 years his junior, barely had a backstory at all. She was, she says, only in trouble at school once, when a boy in her science class talked her into writing a letter making fun of the teacher. “And I apparently left it on the floor in the classroom. She knew the handwriting. I was, like, he made me do it.”
Katrina | 03-Jan-09 at 4:22 pm | Permalink
Thank you for pointing out the obvious – there is a human side to this tragedy. When will everyone’s eyes turn on Cheney and Rumsfeld? Is it because they are well educated, wealthy men of power? It is so much easier to point fingers at what “appears” to be the obvious. Ms. England tortured NO ONE – she simply stepped into pictures that documented what had been going on at Abu Ghraib (and GITMO and Afghanistan) for a long, long time before she ever set foot in that god forsaken place. Her life has been ruined – and now that they Senate Armed Forces Report has come out and verified what she tried to use has her defense – why isn’t the media clammoring to give her a chance to tell her entire story. I hope a publisher will give her the chance to do so – there is so much more to her story, but because she is from Appalachia, severely depressed, used, abused, chewed up and spit out by the man she loved (who is the father of her son, Carter) and the country she served – well, she is an easy mark. People stop pointing fingers at Ms. England and start demanding that the real criminals be forced to stand trial for the policy of darkness they created for grunts like Ms. England. Lynndie – hang in there. The truth will come out.
Katrina | 26-Apr-09 at 4:51 pm | Permalink
So, do you still think Lynndie England has a persecution complex? Do you think she actually was persecuted?
Her only authorized biography will be released on June 1, 2009 by “Bad Apple Books”. It is written by Mr. Gary Winkler, Appalachian-genre writer, and the title is “Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib, and the Photographs that Shocked the World”. It will be avaliable in bookstores, on Amazon,and at http://www.badapplebooks.com (website is currently under construction).